CroutonBoy

INGREDIENTS: wheat, flour, canola and/or sunflower oil, sour cream solids (cultured cream, nonfat milk), salt, water, yeast, buttermilk solids, sugar, natural flavors, parmesan cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), onion, garlic, spices, malted barley flour, citric acid and/or tocopherols added to maintain freshness

I was born and raised in Spokane, WA, on the parched side of the state. I went to Expo '74 a hundred times, and still remember the Russian pavilion, which tastefully excluded ICBMs. My college advisor (an Italian Jesuit from NY) once described Spokanites as "innocent without being naive." I like that.

I attended Gonzaga University before it was cool. I played one season on an intramural basketball, where I led the team in fouls with no more than two minutes actual playing time.

My early-20s were spent in Minneapolis (two seasons: winter and road-construction) where I learned the value of college hockey, live music, and warm boots. I also spent a year in Washington DC, but barely remember it.

We currently live in Brooklyn, having fled the City when we got tired of having fun and listening to our Yugoslavian downstairs neighbor experiment with new coughing patterns.

My wife rocks. I love her because I never have to be anyone but myself with her, and she makes me laugh. She's from New Jersey, but I don't hold that against her. She's ostensibly in PR, but is "between jobs." And no, she has no plans of being a stay-at-home mom.

Some interesting facts...to me:

My wife is a better writer than me, yet she refuses to touch this blog.

Summit Pale Ale is the most consistently enjoyable beer in America, with special props to Alaskan Amber, Full Sail Pale Ale, and Red Hook ESB.

I've won four fantasy football leagues in three years.

I once got my lip caught in a door.

David Lee Roth and Williams Shatner are geniuses. KHAAAAAAAANNN!

The highest concentration of awesomeness in the world is in Italy.

The second highest concentration is in Portland, OR.

I spend more time managing the music on my iPod than I do reading.

I think Scrappy Doo is the first sign of the Apocolypse. I'm sure I can prove this via statistical analysis of data about crime-rate, divorce-rate, natural disasters, and Republican election victories.

I was tired of Dave Matthews loooooong before the rest of you were.

The quest for perfect nachos is all-consuming.

Laughter, orgasms, and ice-cream are the best guarantees of happiness.

I have, on multiple occasions, started a sentence, "So there I was...in the Congo."

I enjoy using semi-colons; it is a lost punctuation art.

I sleep like a log every night. My wife hates this. My daughter strives to reverse this.

I want to learn how to sail. I want to learn how to box. I want to learn how to cook something without exactly following the directions. I want to hire a personal trainer. I want to go back in time and catch the Grateful Dead w/ Jerry Garcia and the Stones in 1972.

I would do almost anything to live in Australia. I have no idea why.

I once broke my nose with my knee.

I'm a hardcore Seattle Seahawks fan. I believe this is the hardest job in the world.

My wife once ran the New York Marathon.

The one time I went to Mardi Gras, I watched my best friend being put into an ambulance, hired a dancer to take a buddy to the back of a bar where I immediately abandoned him, and ended up spending much of the weekend with a girl who sucked her thumb.

I spent three days driving from Spokane to Minneapolis, with stops in Bozeman, MT, and Mitchell, SD.

I drove 24 hours straight from DC to Minneapolis. No stops.

The best place to sit out and drink beer is the University of Wisconsin campus.

Club soda and bitters, with a splash of Sprite, is the perfect hangover cure. I learned this at a bar on State Street after spending the night on the University of Wisconsin campus.

I still have a huge collection of Star Wars action figures and trading cards in a box at my parents house.

I read the Lord of the Rings every two years.

I like having many flavors of mustard on hand.

My wife and I met on Match.com

I've had my heart completely shattered at least three times before I met my wife. Once I was young, another time I was lonely, and the last one was just plain stupid.

I once had an engineering scholarship, but I turned it down because I didn't want to do math for the rest of my life. I ended up majoring in finance.

I have a tattoo of Marvin the Martian on my left shoulder-blade.

I weighed 238 lbs. my junior year in high school. When I started as a senior I weighed 158.

I have gained much of that back.

If I wanted to be a martial arts expert, I'd want to be a master of gymkata.

I've been in the audience for SNL (when The Rock was the guest) and for Jon Stewart (when Hillary Clinton was the guest)

I worked across the street from the WTC on 9/11. I was late for work that day.

I like Bruce Springsteen, but do not understand people who obsess over bootlegs and see him multiple nights in a row.

New Jersey is not as bad as people say it is. But would NEVER live there.

I've seen Hank Williams Jr. playing at the Iowa State Fairgrounds with Metallica as his backing band.

I've been in a mosh pit many times. I have never body surfed.

I love to play cribbage.

I heard whale songs underwater while scuba-diving in Hawaii.

I've been hiking in Sedona, sailing in Thailand and Greece, explored ruins in Germany, and been stoned in Jamaica.

I have a foul mouth, but self-edit my blog in case my Mom is reading it.

I showed up for a flight to Tokyo a day late.

The first song I would want to cover if I had my own band is "Der Kommissar" by After the Fire

I'm a Leo. So what.

I didn't guess the ending of "Presumed Innocent" until the last six pages or the identity of Keyser Soze until the last three minutes. I knew who was going to win each of the last three Survivors eight episodes from the end, and thought that "A Beautiful Mind" was cheap, pathetic attempt at a mystery.

The Chucky movies freak me out.

I think scorpions that jump or fly would be the worst things ever.

I own three musical instruments I've never learned to play. But then when am I going to practice the Djembe drum?

I've been in the business world 15 years, but cannot stand the Wall Street Journal, online trading, or anything involved in the industry I've selected for my career.

I've read and enjoyed "A Study of History" by Arnold Toynbee, "The Rise of the West" by William McNeill, and the Discoverers/Creators/Seekers trilogy by Daniel Boorstin.

I don't think "Godfather III" was as bad as everyone says it was. Yes, by comparison with the other two it sucked, but it's much better than "Analyze This"

I think it will take us decades for this country to recover from the damage done by George W. Bush and his administration

I have terrible posture, and I think I'm getting deep vein thrombosis from sitting at my desk too long.

I can't stand People Magazine or Access Hollywood, yet they are constantly available in my home.

My daughter will like AC/DC. They f*cking ROCK!

ANGUS! ANGUS!

I love Starbucks coffee. Not the lattes, the coffee. And I hate when people complain about it. If your local coffee shop has such awesome coffee, why aren't there 46 of them on my block?

"Exile on Main Street" is the greatest rock album history. Except for "London Calling."

I don't get what the big deal is with Kurt Cobain.

I wanted to name our child Logan if it was boy, because that was Wolverine's name.

I am one of the 40 people left in this country who still play racquetball regularly.

If drafted, I would go to war. But I would prefer to be armed with a composite bow. How cool would that be?

I sometimes forget how funny Steve Martin used to be. I sometimes wonder why I ever found Robin Williams funny at all.

My favorite word? Dumpling.

Note to all you Yankee and Red Sox fans: baseball is boooooooooooring

Jeremy Piven got robbed at the Emmy's

I used to drive a '64 Buick Skylark.

"The Simpsons" stopped being funny around season 9, maybe sooner. "Cheers" never stopped being funny.

Despite having lived in New York for 5 years, I'm still surprised when the city shuts down for Jewish holidays. That never happened in the Midwest. The fishing opener...well that's another story.

I miss Rowdy Roddy Piper.

The last concert I went to was a Jayhawks reunion. It sucked.

The first concert I went to was Harry Belafonte. My parents took me.

The worst concert I went to was the Meat Puppets at Taste of DC. WOW are they bad live.

The best concert I went to was the Offspring at First Ave. in Minneapolis.

The band I've seen live the most? Cheap Trick.